Steeled for Murder (3 page)

I nodded.

“You sure you got nothing to tell me?” Detective Belkins tapped me hard on the chest. I would have a bruise there. I ignored it.

“Yes, sir.”

He smiled. A thin, mean smirk. “Jesse Damon, you’re under arrest for the murder of Mitchell Robinson.”

I willed my knees not to buckle.

“Simmons, put him in your car and take him downtown.”

The other uniform said, “But Detective Belkins…”

Belkins leveled a bleary glare at the speaker. “But nothing. No mystery here. Killers kill. They think they can solve problems that way. Just a matter of clearing up the details.”

“Whatever you say, Detective.” Officer Simmons shook his head. “We just follow orders.”

The two uniformed officers took me by the elbows. There had to be other entrances to the offices; I hoped they would escort me out another way. But they turned me toward the stairs I’d just come up.

I was going to be paraded right past Hank and the other plater operators. They were good enough at their jobs that they could look over to see what was going on.

I had no options. Keep my head up. Look straight ahead. Don’t trip. Above all, don’t cry.

“And Damon,” Belkins said. I glanced toward him. “I can practically guarantee you’ll never see the outside of a prison again in this lifetime.”

He was grinning again. He was enjoying this.

What had I ever done to him?

Chapter 2

I sat on a worn wooden bench at the local lockup, right next to the sign that read “No Weapons Beyond This Point.” I’d been relieved of my belt and boots. I hoped they kept track of the boots; they were expensive. Almost new and steel-toed. I would never be able to afford another pair.

Of course, if I got locked up, I wouldn’t be allowed steel-toed boots anyhow. So maybe it didn’t matter.

I shifted on the hard bench. My hands were cuffed securely to a waistchain wound through an eyebolt set in the wall over my head. I couldn’t find a way to hold my arms so my aching shoulder muscles didn’t hurt. Leg irons bit into my ankles, shoving the ankle monitor into my calf.

I avoided looking at anyone or anything. I had to fight to keep myself from jerking my feet back under the bench every time heavy boots came within inches of my gray woolen socks. Talk about feeling vulnerable.

If I were in a holding cell, I’d be getting breakfast of some sort. Out here, I doubted I would be fed.

Leaning my head against the cinderblock wall behind me, I closed my eyes and tried to rest. No way of knowing the next chance I might get to sleep.

Last time I was arrested, I’d been sixteen. Over the years in prison, I hadn’t given that night much thought. Certainly nothing I could do to change it.

Now the smells of stale food, unwashed bodies, and disinfectant brought a rush of memories flooding back to me, along with the hopeless feeling that I had no control over what had happened to me next.

That night, my brother Denny and the old man had been hanging out in the bedroom. They sat across from each other on the lower bunks, a kitchen chair between them. The fancy hookah that was Denny’s pride and joy sat on the chair, and beer cans littered the floor.

Big Spanish test tomorrow. If I was going to graduate on time and go on to college, I had to pass that test.

I threw myself down on the couch with my textbook opened to the vocabulary section. I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be doing with some of the verb tenses, but vocabulary I could memorize. Maybe that would be enough.

Ignoring the bursts of giggles and pungent smoke that curled from under the door was hard, but I tried.

I must have fallen asleep, face down.

Something whacked me in the back of my head. “Denny, old man! Wake up! We got places to go, things to do, people to see!”

Groaning, I rolled over. Will, my oldest brother, was standing over me, pillow raised for another swat.

“Oh. Jesse. Sorry. Thought you was Denny. Where is he?”

“Last I knew, he and Dad were in the bedroom.”

Will inhaled deeply. “Smoking the evil weed again, were they?”

I shrugged.

Will stepped across the cramped space and opened the bedroom door. He took a step into the room, grabbed Denny by the neck of his hoodie, and dragged him out to join us. I peered past them. The old man was lying sideways on the bed, his eyes closed and his mouth open. With each snore, drool bubbled out of his mouth and down his cheek, puddling on the dirty blanket. A dark stain spread across the front of his pants.

I was glad I slept in an upper bunk.

Still clutching the neck of the hoodie, Will maneuvered Denny over a chair by the kitchen table and deposited him into it. Denny started to slip to the floor.

Will shoved him back into the chair and shook his shoulder.

“Look at me, Denny,” he commanded. “You was supposed to meet me an hour ago. What’s up, man?”

Denny glanced around with bleary eyes and giggled. “Got anything to eat?”

Will slapped him, but not hard. Not like he slapped me when I wouldn’t do what he wanted. “We’ve been waiting for tonight. Big delivery. Come on, man. Get yourself together. We got plans.”

“Good plans. Get bombed.” Denny nodded vigorously, almost losing his balance.

Will looked from Denny to me and back again.

“We’re gonna need your help, kid,” he said.

“My help? Hell no. I got a big test tomorrow. I can’t go out on one of your flaky adventures.”

“Flaky adventures!” Denny threw himself against the back of the chair, laughing. “He’s got a ‘big test’ tomorrow, and he says we have flaky adventures!”

Will narrowed his eyes. I knew I was going to end up doing what he wanted. So did he. But not without a protest.

“Shut up,” he said to Denny, raising his hand again.

Denny winced and put his arm in front of his face, but he couldn’t stop giggling. “Flaky adventures!” he said once more under his breath.

I picked up my Spanish book.

“Look,” Will said, keeping his voice low and steady. “I know you got this thing for school, and I don’t care if you want to get into college. Go for it. But tonight, we need your help. We’re family. We stick together.”

A number of possible responses came into my head, but Will would not appreciate any of them.

I said, “Denny’ll help you. Just wait until he’s straight again.”

“I was gonna ask you even before Denny made himself next to useless. And it has to be now.”

“It’s two o’clock in the morning,” I said.

“I know.” As long as he thought he would get his way, Will could be patient. For a little while. “But I’ve been waiting for this. You got to help us.”

“I’m not interested.” I stared down at the words. They blurred together on the page.

“Jesse.” Will’s voice was honing its steel edge. “We got to cop some stuff for Dad. Otherwise, you know he’ll go out on the street, looking for himself. Until he’s off of home detention, that’s asking for trouble. He’ll get picked up and sent away.”

“Rehab,” I said. “Maybe it’d do him some good. He could start off clean again.”

“More likely back to prison,” Will said. “Then we’d lose the apartment. And the food stamps. And you, little man, will go back into the system.”

He was worried about losing the Social Security check the old man got for me. And the Section 8 housing voucher. And the food stamps.

“I didn’t do so bad in the system all those years he was locked up,” I said. Tears pricked at the insides of my eyelids.

“Yeah.” His eyes bored into me. I’d been little more than a baby when our mother died and I went into foster care. Will and Denny hadn’t made out so well. They’d been sent to Boy’s Village, a residence for neglected and delinquent youth.

No words formed in my dry mouth. I stared sightlessly down at the page in my textbook.

“You’re sixteen now. You got a juvie record,” Will pointed out. “Ain’t no nice couple gonna take you to live in their house now.”

I managed another shrug.

“We need you, Jesse,” Will said. “I know where we can go cop a whole load of stuff, keep Dad happy for days.”

“He’ll just use it all up right away,” I said miserably.

“Not if I dole it out to him a little at a time,” Will said.

“What is it?” I asked. “More of that crap that makes him go all crazy?”

“No. This is diesel. Think of it like methadone maintenance, only with the real stuff. Keep him home and happy.”

“One of these days, his PO is gonna piss test him and he’s gonna come up positive.”

“Chance we’ll have to take. If he’s compliant, they got no reason to test him. He don’t have no record of substance abuse.”

I couldn’t imagine how that had happened.

“So what do you want me to do?” But I had a pretty good idea.

“Just carry. Be the mule. You’re sixteen; they catch you with anything, it’s a slap on the wrist.”

“Like last time?” I shivered.

“Hey, so you picked up ninety days in kiddie jail. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I’d been hungry and cold most of the time. I’d been the “celebrant” at a blanket party. The only reason I hadn’t been raped was because I’d fought like a wildcat. But if Will didn’t know what it had been like for me, I wasn’t going to tell him.

Besides, while I was there, I’d managed to pass a few of the mandatory high school assessment tests for graduation. I was the only resident who had ever passed one. The education supervisor was so shocked, he’d asked for a review of my test scores.

Colleges didn’t like to see juvenile detention facilities or alternative schools listed on applications. Especially on scholarship applications, and I would surely need financial aid.

Denny made a choking noise. Will hauled him to his feet and shoved him toward the kitchen sink.

“Splash some cold water on your face,” he ordered. “And get yourself a drink of water. We got to get going.”

“You ought to wait till he’s at least a little straight,” I said.

“Can’t. Opportunity knocks. He’s the only one they’ll open the door for. Even if he’s wasted. Especially if he’s wasted. They’ll figure he can’t be up to much.”

Didn’t sound good. “What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t you worry yourself,” Will said. “You just got to come along, hang out where I tell you. Take what we give you. Bring it back here. Don’t let Dad see it.”

Will tossed me a dark gray hoodie like the ones he and Denny wore. I held it uncertainly.

“Chilly out there,” he told me. He didn’t add much harder to see in the dark than the white tee shirt I had on, but I knew that’s why he wanted me to wear it.

I pulled it over my head.

We tumbled down the stairs and out into the night, Will keeping a firm hand on Denny’s arm.

A chill drizzle cut through the air. I flipped up the hood, stuffed my hands in the kangaroo pocket, and hunched against the wind. Denny wavered, giggling under his breath. Will straightened him out and propelled him forward.

Two blocks away, our neglected neighborhood turned desolate. Trash blew along the curbs among the carcasses of stripped cars. Tall, thin row houses loomed over us, their windows boarded up. Something skittered across the street and ran down a storm drain.

Will stopped. A narrow walkway faded back between two houses. Denny plunked himself down on crumbling brick steps.

“You just wait here.” Will nodded toward the narrow space.

I wrinkled my nose. The sinister puddles on the cracked concrete smelled of urine and vomit. I tried to position myself so the soles of my worn boots wouldn’t get soaked.

“Denny and I will be coming through here from the alley. You take what we give you and go home.”

“Where are you going to go?” I asked.

“Don’t you worry about us,” he said. “We’ll be home by morning.”

“And if anything happens…”

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“Yeah. What’s the chances of something happening twice in a row? If you do get stopped, just keep your mouth shut. You’re a kid. What are they gonna do to you?”

Ruin the rest of my life,
I thought glumly.
Before I ever get a chance to do anything.

Will yanked Denny to his feet. “We won’t be long.”

They went to the dark doorway of a house down the block, paused briefly, and disappeared inside.

I huddled back into the shelter of the walkway, shivering and watching the gloom.

Way down the block, a lone streetlamp cast a wan circle of light on the wet pavement and shimmering bits of broken glass.

A dark-colored van drove slowly down the street with its lights out. A surprisingly well-kept van. Another one passed in the alley at the other end of the walkway. No lights there, either.

The van stopped in front of the house my brothers had gone into. The doors opened quietly, and several men jumped out. They carried unwieldy cylindrical shapes. A battering ram and guns.